Children starting school next year will learn about money management, ancient civilisations and the origins of Moriori, but the words “climate change” will not appear anywhere in what their teachers are required to cover for their first ten years in the classroom.
Education Minister Erica Stanford released the final Science and Social Sciences learning areas for Years 0 to 10 on 12 August. Schools must begin teaching them from 2027 and have two years to fully phase them in. Neither document mentions climate change, despite the topic appearing in the draft versions that went out for consultation.
The omission was first reported by RNZ education correspondent John Gerritsen and has drawn sharp criticism from education academics, though the practical effect on classrooms is more complicated than the headline suggests.
University of Waikato education professor Chris Eames called it a massive omission. “Climate change is a subject that people do find a bit challenging in some of the younger years of schooling. However, to leave it out completely up to the age of 14 seems an incredible and bewildering step to take,” he told RNZ.
Eames said the word “climate” did not appear once in the science curriculum. “Now, that seems incredible. Climate is a key part of the atmospheric systems that we’re operating in… it does beg the question who has made that decision,” he said.
He also raised what happens when weather turns up at the school gate. “I could imagine there would be students turning up to class when the latest flood has happened in their community, asking questions about how do we stop this from happening, why has this happened and a teacher who has the best of intentions, has perhaps a limited understanding of climate change and how these things have occurred, will be struggling to provide the answers.”
The Ministry of Education says the underlying science is still there. In a statement to RNZ it said feedback from consultation and subject matter experts showed climate change was best taught in ways that matched students’ age and stage of learning. “While the term climate change may not appear in the curriculum content, the science that underpins it is taught throughout the Science learning area,” it said. “Students learn how climate systems work and why climate change happens. They also learn about climate change impacts through Social Sciences. This includes topics such as sea level rise in Pacific Islands and New Zealand’s coastal environment, the links between rainfall and flooding, and the effects of tropical rainforest deforestation on climate.”
One detail sitting underneath the row is worth pulling out. A ministry document summarising submissions noted that some submitters argued climate change should not be covered in Year 5 Geography because it was too complex for that age, and pointed out that the curriculum being replaced also left the topic until Year 11. On that reading, the final documents do not move climate change later than where it has sat for years. What they do is walk back a proposal in the drafts to bring it forward into primary and intermediate classrooms.
Auckland University of Technology senior lecturer Carrie Swanson confirmed the sequence in comments gathered by the Science Media Centre. “Of concern, Climate change has been removed from the final version; this was present in the 2025 draft,” she said. Swanson said the science curriculum returned to a transmission model in which knowledge was siloed rather than integrated.
University of Auckland education researcher Jack Webster made a similar point about the social sciences document, saying there was no mention of climate change “anywhere in the curriculum” at a time when wildfires were spreading around the world.
Teachers themselves sound less alarmed. Intermediate school science teacher John Marsh told RNZ primary teachers would cover climate change anyway because they could not avoid it when teaching habitats and the water cycle. “By and large, New Zealand teachers have a pretty good understanding of what climate change is all about and they will talk about it,” he said. Marsh described the final science curriculum as a big improvement on the draft, saying the ministry had clearly listened and had removed material that was not age appropriate.
The louder complaint from the sector is not about climate at all. It is about volume. Principals Federation president Jason Miles said both curriculums contained less than the drafts but still more than schools could get through. “In science and social sciences we have an hour a week in the primary environment to teach the curriculum, and there are up to 50 or 60 goals that are listed per year,” he said. Miles noted that 93 percent of schools have composite classes covering more than one year level, which he called very complicated and untenable.
The New Zealand History Teachers Association welcomed the reduction in content and the explicit inclusion of the New Zealand Wars at Year 9, but said there was still too much prescription and too little time for schools to prepare. Chemist Michael Edmonds, president of the New Zealand Institute of Chemistry, said it was disappointing that chemistry was not a separate strand, with science reduced to physical and biological science.
Stanford has framed the release around clarity and civics. “There is now much greater clarity about what students will be taught at each year level, which will benefit all young people learning through the refreshed curriculum,” she said, adding she was particularly pleased with the focus on civics and financial education. The Government drew on about 3,900 submissions during a six month consultation and has committed $39.9 million for science kits in every state and state integrated school by early 2027.
With a general election in November, the curriculum is now a campaign document as much as a teaching one. Voters weighing up how the parties differ on schools, science and climate policy can compare positions using the Newswire voting tool.
The final Years 11 to 13 curriculum is due later this year, with senior content phased in from 2028. Climate change appears in the draft senior geography and science documents. Eames said that was no consolation, because by then a generation of students will have passed through a decade of schooling in which the subject was never named.
What do you think, should climate change be taught in primary school or left until Year 11? Have your say in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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